If they severely discounted it, I might pick one up and hack it. For about $100 you can pick up a Pentium III 733 MHz system with similar specs except for maybe the video system.
If it was down to $60 or so, you could have a cheap and effective box to run a Linux PVR from, and perhaps even the ability to play an XBox game (are there any good XBox games?).
I went to elementary school with a kid that threw chairs at people. He also hid under tables and would not come out. He had some pretty severe chemical imbalance in his brain. I wonder what company he is CEO of today.
I was at a game store in the mall the other day (Game Stop, EB Games, I forget which exactly). And some guy was there with his ~10 year old kid. The dad is standing behind the kid as the kid peruses the games and points out Doom 3. The dad doesn't even pick up the box to look at it, and calls out a store employee to see if they have the game in stock. The employee comes over, sees the kid pointing the game out, and informs the dad that the game is extremely graphic and violent with tons of blood and gore. The dad doesn't even flinch, as if simply waiting for the employee to get the game. The employee picks up the box, shows the dad the screenshots on the back side, and reiterates his previous statements about violence, blood, and gore. The dad still isn't phased, and just continues waiting for the employee to get the game. I was initially somewhat shocked, then I remembered how stupid a lot of people are today. And then when this little kid takes a chainsaw to his friend's head, the parents will yearn for the game company's blood.
You joke, but IIR is already estimating how much their should receive for the mark. Looking at their website: www.iirgroup.com and navigating through their press releases, you can find this one entitled GmailTM web-based email trade mark valuation report. Guess how much they are estimating? Directly from the PDF: $48million to $64million. How did they arive at this number? Well, Google's annualized revenues are $3,224million. And they pulled 0.5% out of the air as a "conservative" royalty rate (because we know that all of Google's revenues are due to ads placed in GMail), which gives us about $16million. And then they feel they deserve 3x to 4x that amount, and tada! We arrive at $48million to $64million. Now that is the most solid reasoning I have ever seen.
Independent International Investment Research, a British company that specialises in research and has several leading City investment banks as clients
lol, what a name. I am part of the International Association of American Researchers and Innovators and we specialize in research and innovation. We're an international association, and we have many American researchers and innovators that are researching and innovating all the time. So everybody better pay up!
Moving on... are these people retarded? First they say:
IIR said this morning that, after about 15 months of "correspondence and negotiations" with Google in an effort to have the "superiority" of its claim over the trade mark to G-Mail recognised, discussions are now at an end with no agreement having been reached.
Then they say:
"I feel it is up to me as the founder and the major shareholder. We're not going to sit on the sidelines while a company uses our intellectual property rights," he said. "We're confident that we have the funding available to us and we're girding our loins," he said.
Well, what is it? Are they suing Google for use of the technology behind GMail (a la intellectual property) or are they suing Google for use of the name GMail (a la trademark)? I smell BS here. They just figured out they had a similar name in the past and want to milk some money out of Google. Besides, the name is actually Google Mail, isn't it? GMail is just an abbreviation commonly used, although I guess it might be trademarked as well.
And then they go on to talk about settlements for the fair value of the name GMail, as if the former GMail service from IIR was actually worth anything. Um, yes, that'll be $100 million dollars please. Gimme a break.
From the sounds of the article, IIR's GMail is all but dead. They keep talking about it like the idea was... as if the whole thing was a complete flop. Why doesn't IIR bring up an argument for why they named their supposed service GMail in the first place. That way at least the public can judge the relevance of their claim (whether or not that has legal bearing).
I'm not siding with Google because I think they are wonderful, nice, and my friend. I'm just siding with them initially because this claim looks completely basless.
Thing about RvB is that you either love it or you hate it. Me, I absolutely hate that show. Nothing but a bunch of talking heads that sound like 13 year olds from counter strike. And everything they say is absolutely stupid. I know there are people out there that love it. But there are also a LOT of people that think it is the dumbest thing ever. Me, I've got better things to do than listen to a couple of morons' back and forth banter.
Yeh, I'm not talking about insurance, I'm talking about government handouts. People have a right to make insurance claims for their houses, they paid for the insurance to start with. That's the whole idea behind insurance - you don't want to take big risks, so you pay someone else to take them for you. If I had a house in an earthquake zone, I'd pay for earthquake insurance. If I had a house in a flood zone, I'd pay for flood insurance. Tornado zone, tornado insurance. Etc. The government doesn't need to be making handouts though.
I'm not saying to completely abandon the place, of course we would rebuild the shipping infrastructure. Hell, we build oil platforms in the North Atlantic, and they get beat to hell. But you have to go where the oil is located. What I'm talking about are the scores of people that have no particular reason to live in New Orleans. Those people could very well live in NY, LA, Chicago, and their lives would be exactly the same (for the most part). They'd work a similar job and have similar expenses, and spend their time doing similar things. There is nothing unique about the fact that they live in New Orleans.
I don't understand why it's costing us anything. They're the ones that lived below fuking sea level. They're the ones that lived in the path of hurricanes. They're the ones that should have been concerned about the construction status of the levee. It's their problem, not mine or the rest of the country's. They should have realized themselves that they live in an area prone to disasters and paid for the proper precautions to prevent such disasters.
I say we give them some food and water to survive (300,000 people * $10/day/person in food and water * 30 days = $90 million) while we dam up the levees and pump out the town (30 days, $3 million/day? another $90 million?) and then let them figure it out. What in the hell is the $50 billion for, or even $10.5 billion, or whatever congress gives them. I'm not paying for some guy's house, his clothes, his belongings. Why in the hell is FEMA giving people $2000 debit cards to do with as they please. The whole thing is a crock of shit. We'll help them out so they don't die, but I'm not gonna feel sorry that they lost all their possessions and hand over my hard earned money. They made a stupid decision to live in that area, and now they are paying the consequences.
Maybe this is just what we need to kick start the next phase of space exploration? With private companies attempting to do things like this, they aren't subject to the vast sea of requirements of government agencies. This era could be akin to the days of the old world explorers: Polo, Cook, da Gama, Magellan (although they were partially funded by govs). When people would go explore for the sake of the possibilities; and even though many died along the way, they were successful in finding new worlds (although already inhabited) and (eventually) colonizing them. We are completely hung up on maintaining 100% health before we even risk going to Mars or going back to the Moon. Sure, the government needs to worry about this, but if a company and its employees are willing to risk more then we might be able to achieve more. The next thing we know, the Mars or Moon environment might spark some sort of manufacturing or research break through and everybody will be scrambling to set up colonies after the first guy figures it out.
This could be interesting, but anything can be 20 years out as well. Flying cars? Pfff - 20 years. Fusion? Pfff - 20 years. So beware...
Alright, show me an atheist who believes in an afterlife (whether that be a spiritual life, reincarnation, or whatever).
Non-sequiturs... right. Because it so difficult to see that no matter what your derivation might be, if you multiply by 0 in the end, you always get 0.
I can't make it much more plain, so take your shot at it. I like how you skirt by taking any responsibility for your argument by just shrugging it all off:
The fallacies are so tangled up together I can't distinguish them.
Why don't you quit the hand-waving and actually come up with something we can discuss. Unless you really are that inept at arguing, in which case this whole thing will just be annoying for me and confusing for you, so we might as well stop now.
Um, well then you're not really an atheist. However, assuming you are an atheist that believes that there is nothing after death, then going to pick up your kids from preschool is pointless. Because their life is pointless. And your life is pointless. Both your lives mean nothing in the end because after you die, you cease to exist in all forms. Many atheists can't think outside the box in terms of their existence (although they may be capable of such thought elsewhere), so this may be a hard thing to grasp. But in the grand scheme, if one thing means absolutely nothing, why should anyone bother with it? It all comes back to just being hard-wired... there's no other argument. However, if you would care to extrapolate on your statement: "I personally have plenty of reasons to live (I'm leaving in 10 minutes to go pick one of them up from preschool)" then please do. Come up with some arguments and reasons for why your daily actions, your kid's life, and your life matter at all.
Actually, if you look at this line, I think the judge is simply trying to be fair.
THE COURT: Well, we'll see, won't we? We'll see. And if what she's telling me is wrong, I won't be very happy with her.
She probably noticed all the people the RIAA was beating up with the numerous lawsuits filed with the court, but no hearings actually being scheduled (since everyone settled). And she just wanted someone to be given a fair chance so that she could see what was actually going on in these incidents.
That is the most ridiculous "common straw-man attack" ever. Anyone that would use it, whatever their angle may be, doesn't deserve a lot of credit. So the need to counter it is somewhat diminshed.
A better, perhaps less-common, straw-man attack is to discuss the point of living with atheists. If they truly believe that there is no spiritual life to humans (or other animals, as prescribed on a religion-by-religion case ), then why live at all? If you completely cease to exist in any form whatsoever when your physical body dies, then what is the point of living your life? In the end, everything you do now will not matter. Well, maybe you just want to enjoy the ride? To what end? Why enjoy it, if the enjoyment means nothing after you die? People take vacations to relax and take a break from working. The effects of the vacation are felt after it completes as you get back to your work, you feel refreshed, the fact that you took the vacation really matters. You can remember it and reminisce about the events. But if there is nothing beyond death, then everything you do in life is meaningless. You will not recall anything you did in life. Everyone that is still alive when you die will not remember anything about you when they die. And so on. You might as well stop living right now. The only reason you have a will to live your life is because of the hard wiring in your brain to not die long enough to reproduce and raise young. But isn't that an absurd reason to live your life... because you are hard-wired to? You really don't care about life at all, you are just following directions from your brain? Even then, why not just get a simple job, reproduce at age 20, raise your kids until they are 20 and you are 40, then die? Perhaps atheists are just short-sighted and aren't thinking about the long-term implications? The responses to this discussion from atheists are interesting.
Maybe according to you. I, for one, enjoyed the sliders show immensely. The plots were general fun (not terribly engaging though if you were looking for intellectual stimulation). The acting was good for a TV sci fi series. And the premise was pretty cool: parallel universes where events in our history changed and what the world would be like today if such event changes happened.
You *could* take off on foot, or bus, or bike, to get out of town.. but then what? You probably have no (or very, very little) money to buy food, nowhere to sleep, nowhere to go.
What's better? Being stuck on the side of a flooded disease-ridden street with no help in sight, and no options available, with no one else in the city, no municipal services, and no one even present to offer you a job? Or being stuck in a city that's alive and kicking, on the street, with homeless shelters to go to, lesser chance of catching some disease, and at least the opportunity to try to find a job?
I'll take option 2. Hell, if you're earning minimum wage, you're probably doing a manual labor job anyhow... so why not head north where the place is a mess, but at least the houses are still standing, and have someone pay you to clean up the mess in their yard?
My original comment may have been a bit idealistic, but my whole point is that there are a lot of people that are in a crappy situation right now that could be in a (slightly) better situation if they had put some thought into it beforehand. Maybe that's why they were poor and destitute in the first place? I dunno.
I was wondering if anyone else happened to watch the Oil Storm special on FX (not FOX, the FX channel) that aired back in May/June 2005. It was a dramatized documentary about a hurricane hitting Port Fourchon in September 2005, including fake news reports and fake accounts of people affected by the event. The kicker to the whole story was that a major pipeline that runs into the gulf was severed, and the main canal that oil ships take to get to the refineries was blocked off. Oil prices surged, the president delcared a new emergency energy czar (they seriously called him a czar) to manage the energy crisis, we invaed Saudi Arabia or something to secure our oil supplies, gas shot up to $7/gal all across the country, farms shut down, etc. There were plenty of things wrong with the show, and I found that somewhat absurd premises were placed at convenient locations throughout the show. But otherwise it was interesting to watch.
Now that Katrina came through and had similar effects around the same time of the year, it's kind of eerie...
I realized the same thing from the start, but for the able-bodied people, there's something to be said for just getting up and leaving. Take the bus as far out of town as possible and then start walking. Or grab a cheap-ass bike and start making progress. You could make a good 30 miles over the 2 day warning period. Or hitchhike. Hell, $20 will get you 100 miles on a Greyhound bus. If you've got enough money to eat for the next 2 days, you've got enough to get out of the way of the disaster. But anyways, I'm making this comment because I'm surprised at how many able-bodied people I see on the news that rode it out. They needed to use their brains to figure out how to get out of town while the capability to get out of town was still available. Now that it isn't, they're screwed, but they should have thought it through better earlier. Sure, hindsight is 20/20, but I would have no qualms about picking up and leaving for 2 days from the metro area I live in if I saw some shit about to hit the fan. Sure, I own a vehicle, its old, high mileage, but I would have no problems living out of it for a few days. I've done it before to save money on motels.
I could see it happening on private highways: a.k.a. toll roads. I'm not sure how the process of acquiring a toll road is carried out, but GM could put in a new route, say direct from LA to LV, and only allow people who use an auto-drive system to enter the road way. This way GM could control the roadway, and the standards for interfacing with the roadway. That would ensure seamless protocol support between the end user, the system, and the system controllers. And for such a popular route, if they could get enough market saturation with the cars, I'm sure the demand for the route would be there to support itself financially. If not, GM has loads of cash to spends on something innovative enough to make themselves famous anyhow.
Slashdot Mirror
If they severely discounted it, I might pick one up and hack it. For about $100 you can pick up a Pentium III 733 MHz system with similar specs except for maybe the video system.
If it was down to $60 or so, you could have a cheap and effective box to run a Linux PVR from, and perhaps even the ability to play an XBox game (are there any good XBox games?).
I went to elementary school with a kid that threw chairs at people. He also hid under tables and would not come out. He had some pretty severe chemical imbalance in his brain. I wonder what company he is CEO of today.
I was at a game store in the mall the other day (Game Stop, EB Games, I forget which exactly). And some guy was there with his ~10 year old kid. The dad is standing behind the kid as the kid peruses the games and points out Doom 3. The dad doesn't even pick up the box to look at it, and calls out a store employee to see if they have the game in stock. The employee comes over, sees the kid pointing the game out, and informs the dad that the game is extremely graphic and violent with tons of blood and gore. The dad doesn't even flinch, as if simply waiting for the employee to get the game. The employee picks up the box, shows the dad the screenshots on the back side, and reiterates his previous statements about violence, blood, and gore. The dad still isn't phased, and just continues waiting for the employee to get the game. I was initially somewhat shocked, then I remembered how stupid a lot of people are today. And then when this little kid takes a chainsaw to his friend's head, the parents will yearn for the game company's blood.
Corporate espionage? People don't talk about it much today, but it's just as alive and kicking as it has been for the last 40/50/60 years.
The important question: Is Sue hot? If she is, just reinstall XP and ask her to get busy while the hard drive is formatting.
You joke, but IIR is already estimating how much their should receive for the mark. Looking at their website: www.iirgroup.com and navigating through their press releases, you can find this one entitled GmailTM web-based email trade mark valuation report. Guess how much they are estimating? Directly from the PDF: $48million to $64million. How did they arive at this number? Well, Google's annualized revenues are $3,224million. And they pulled 0.5% out of the air as a "conservative" royalty rate (because we know that all of Google's revenues are due to ads placed in GMail), which gives us about $16million. And then they feel they deserve 3x to 4x that amount, and tada! We arrive at $48million to $64million. Now that is the most solid reasoning I have ever seen.
Ok, let's start with the obvious here:
Independent International Investment Research, a British company that specialises in research and has several leading City investment banks as clients
lol, what a name. I am part of the International Association of American Researchers and Innovators and we specialize in research and innovation. We're an international association, and we have many American researchers and innovators that are researching and innovating all the time. So everybody better pay up!
Moving on
IIR said this morning that, after about 15 months of "correspondence and negotiations" with Google in an effort to have the "superiority" of its claim over the trade mark to G-Mail recognised, discussions are now at an end with no agreement having been reached.
Then they say:
"I feel it is up to me as the founder and the major shareholder. We're not going to sit on the sidelines while a company uses our intellectual property rights," he said. "We're confident that we have the funding available to us and we're girding our loins," he said.
Well, what is it? Are they suing Google for use of the technology behind GMail (a la intellectual property) or are they suing Google for use of the name GMail (a la trademark)? I smell BS here. They just figured out they had a similar name in the past and want to milk some money out of Google. Besides, the name is actually Google Mail, isn't it? GMail is just an abbreviation commonly used, although I guess it might be trademarked as well.
And then they go on to talk about settlements for the fair value of the name GMail, as if the former GMail service from IIR was actually worth anything. Um, yes, that'll be $100 million dollars please. Gimme a break.
From the sounds of the article, IIR's GMail is all but dead. They keep talking about it like the idea was
I'm not siding with Google because I think they are wonderful, nice, and my friend. I'm just siding with them initially because this claim looks completely basless.
Thing about RvB is that you either love it or you hate it. Me, I absolutely hate that show. Nothing but a bunch of talking heads that sound like 13 year olds from counter strike. And everything they say is absolutely stupid. I know there are people out there that love it. But there are also a LOT of people that think it is the dumbest thing ever. Me, I've got better things to do than listen to a couple of morons' back and forth banter.
Yeh, I'm not talking about insurance, I'm talking about government handouts. People have a right to make insurance claims for their houses, they paid for the insurance to start with. That's the whole idea behind insurance - you don't want to take big risks, so you pay someone else to take them for you. If I had a house in an earthquake zone, I'd pay for earthquake insurance. If I had a house in a flood zone, I'd pay for flood insurance. Tornado zone, tornado insurance. Etc. The government doesn't need to be making handouts though.
Um, 1997 called, they want their graphics back.
I'm not saying to completely abandon the place, of course we would rebuild the shipping infrastructure. Hell, we build oil platforms in the North Atlantic, and they get beat to hell. But you have to go where the oil is located. What I'm talking about are the scores of people that have no particular reason to live in New Orleans. Those people could very well live in NY, LA, Chicago, and their lives would be exactly the same (for the most part). They'd work a similar job and have similar expenses, and spend their time doing similar things. There is nothing unique about the fact that they live in New Orleans.
I knew what you meant. Arabian horses are cool.
I don't understand why it's costing us anything. They're the ones that lived below fuking sea level. They're the ones that lived in the path of hurricanes. They're the ones that should have been concerned about the construction status of the levee. It's their problem, not mine or the rest of the country's. They should have realized themselves that they live in an area prone to disasters and paid for the proper precautions to prevent such disasters.
I say we give them some food and water to survive (300,000 people * $10/day/person in food and water * 30 days = $90 million) while we dam up the levees and pump out the town (30 days, $3 million/day? another $90 million?) and then let them figure it out. What in the hell is the $50 billion for, or even $10.5 billion, or whatever congress gives them. I'm not paying for some guy's house, his clothes, his belongings. Why in the hell is FEMA giving people $2000 debit cards to do with as they please. The whole thing is a crock of shit. We'll help them out so they don't die, but I'm not gonna feel sorry that they lost all their possessions and hand over my hard earned money. They made a stupid decision to live in that area, and now they are paying the consequences.
Maybe this is just what we need to kick start the next phase of space exploration? With private companies attempting to do things like this, they aren't subject to the vast sea of requirements of government agencies. This era could be akin to the days of the old world explorers: Polo, Cook, da Gama, Magellan (although they were partially funded by govs). When people would go explore for the sake of the possibilities; and even though many died along the way, they were successful in finding new worlds (although already inhabited) and (eventually) colonizing them. We are completely hung up on maintaining 100% health before we even risk going to Mars or going back to the Moon. Sure, the government needs to worry about this, but if a company and its employees are willing to risk more then we might be able to achieve more. The next thing we know, the Mars or Moon environment might spark some sort of manufacturing or research break through and everybody will be scrambling to set up colonies after the first guy figures it out.
...
This could be interesting, but anything can be 20 years out as well. Flying cars? Pfff - 20 years. Fusion? Pfff - 20 years. So beware
a heroic captain who plugged a breach in a dike with his ship
Giggity Giggity Giggity Allright!!
Alright, show me an atheist who believes in an afterlife (whether that be a spiritual life, reincarnation, or whatever).
Non-sequiturs
I can't make it much more plain, so take your shot at it. I like how you skirt by taking any responsibility for your argument by just shrugging it all off:
The fallacies are so tangled up together I can't distinguish them.
Why don't you quit the hand-waving and actually come up with something we can discuss. Unless you really are that inept at arguing, in which case this whole thing will just be annoying for me and confusing for you, so we might as well stop now.
Good Riddance to a bad piece of bloatware. I'll be happy to see Kazaa die. Although I may not be happy about the implications.
Um, well then you're not really an atheist. However, assuming you are an atheist that believes that there is nothing after death, then going to pick up your kids from preschool is pointless. Because their life is pointless. And your life is pointless. Both your lives mean nothing in the end because after you die, you cease to exist in all forms. Many atheists can't think outside the box in terms of their existence (although they may be capable of such thought elsewhere), so this may be a hard thing to grasp. But in the grand scheme, if one thing means absolutely nothing, why should anyone bother with it? It all comes back to just being hard-wired ... there's no other argument. However, if you would care to extrapolate on your statement: "I personally have plenty of reasons to live (I'm leaving in 10 minutes to go pick one of them up from preschool)" then please do. Come up with some arguments and reasons for why your daily actions, your kid's life, and your life matter at all.
Actually, if you look at this line, I think the judge is simply trying to be fair.
THE COURT: Well, we'll see, won't we? We'll see. And if what she's telling me is wrong, I won't be very happy with her.
She probably noticed all the people the RIAA was beating up with the numerous lawsuits filed with the court, but no hearings actually being scheduled (since everyone settled). And she just wanted someone to be given a fair chance so that she could see what was actually going on in these incidents.
That is the most ridiculous "common straw-man attack" ever. Anyone that would use it, whatever their angle may be, doesn't deserve a lot of credit. So the need to counter it is somewhat diminshed.
... because you are hard-wired to? You really don't care about life at all, you are just following directions from your brain? Even then, why not just get a simple job, reproduce at age 20, raise your kids until they are 20 and you are 40, then die? Perhaps atheists are just short-sighted and aren't thinking about the long-term implications? The responses to this discussion from atheists are interesting.
A better, perhaps less-common, straw-man attack is to discuss the point of living with atheists. If they truly believe that there is no spiritual life to humans (or other animals, as prescribed on a religion-by-religion case ), then why live at all? If you completely cease to exist in any form whatsoever when your physical body dies, then what is the point of living your life? In the end, everything you do now will not matter. Well, maybe you just want to enjoy the ride? To what end? Why enjoy it, if the enjoyment means nothing after you die? People take vacations to relax and take a break from working. The effects of the vacation are felt after it completes as you get back to your work, you feel refreshed, the fact that you took the vacation really matters. You can remember it and reminisce about the events. But if there is nothing beyond death, then everything you do in life is meaningless. You will not recall anything you did in life. Everyone that is still alive when you die will not remember anything about you when they die. And so on. You might as well stop living right now. The only reason you have a will to live your life is because of the hard wiring in your brain to not die long enough to reproduce and raise young. But isn't that an absurd reason to live your life
reference to a bad sci-fi series
Maybe according to you. I, for one, enjoyed the sliders show immensely. The plots were general fun (not terribly engaging though if you were looking for intellectual stimulation). The acting was good for a TV sci fi series. And the premise was pretty cool: parallel universes where events in our history changed and what the world would be like today if such event changes happened.
You *could* take off on foot, or bus, or bike, to get out of town.. but then what? You probably have no (or very, very little) money to buy food, nowhere to sleep, nowhere to go.
What's better? Being stuck on the side of a flooded disease-ridden street with no help in sight, and no options available, with no one else in the city, no municipal services, and no one even present to offer you a job? Or being stuck in a city that's alive and kicking, on the street, with homeless shelters to go to, lesser chance of catching some disease, and at least the opportunity to try to find a job?
I'll take option 2. Hell, if you're earning minimum wage, you're probably doing a manual labor job anyhow
My original comment may have been a bit idealistic, but my whole point is that there are a lot of people that are in a crappy situation right now that could be in a (slightly) better situation if they had put some thought into it beforehand. Maybe that's why they were poor and destitute in the first place? I dunno.
I was wondering if anyone else happened to watch the Oil Storm special on FX (not FOX, the FX channel) that aired back in May/June 2005. It was a dramatized documentary about a hurricane hitting Port Fourchon in September 2005, including fake news reports and fake accounts of people affected by the event. The kicker to the whole story was that a major pipeline that runs into the gulf was severed, and the main canal that oil ships take to get to the refineries was blocked off. Oil prices surged, the president delcared a new emergency energy czar (they seriously called him a czar) to manage the energy crisis, we invaed Saudi Arabia or something to secure our oil supplies, gas shot up to $7/gal all across the country, farms shut down, etc. There were plenty of things wrong with the show, and I found that somewhat absurd premises were placed at convenient locations throughout the show. But otherwise it was interesting to watch.
...
Now that Katrina came through and had similar effects around the same time of the year, it's kind of eerie
I realized the same thing from the start, but for the able-bodied people, there's something to be said for just getting up and leaving. Take the bus as far out of town as possible and then start walking. Or grab a cheap-ass bike and start making progress. You could make a good 30 miles over the 2 day warning period. Or hitchhike. Hell, $20 will get you 100 miles on a Greyhound bus. If you've got enough money to eat for the next 2 days, you've got enough to get out of the way of the disaster. But anyways, I'm making this comment because I'm surprised at how many able-bodied people I see on the news that rode it out. They needed to use their brains to figure out how to get out of town while the capability to get out of town was still available. Now that it isn't, they're screwed, but they should have thought it through better earlier. Sure, hindsight is 20/20, but I would have no qualms about picking up and leaving for 2 days from the metro area I live in if I saw some shit about to hit the fan. Sure, I own a vehicle, its old, high mileage, but I would have no problems living out of it for a few days. I've done it before to save money on motels.
I could see it happening on private highways: a.k.a. toll roads. I'm not sure how the process of acquiring a toll road is carried out, but GM could put in a new route, say direct from LA to LV, and only allow people who use an auto-drive system to enter the road way. This way GM could control the roadway, and the standards for interfacing with the roadway. That would ensure seamless protocol support between the end user, the system, and the system controllers. And for such a popular route, if they could get enough market saturation with the cars, I'm sure the demand for the route would be there to support itself financially. If not, GM has loads of cash to spends on something innovative enough to make themselves famous anyhow.